[EricH]

And for those who don't want a link, here's the quote from the Manual:

Originally Posted by Section 5

T6 All Teams must be civil towards their own Team members, other Teams, competition personnel, FIELD staff, and event attendees while at an FIRST Robotics Competition event.

Violation: Behavior will be discussed with Team or individual. Violations of this rule are likely to escalate to YELLOW or RED CARDS rapidly (i.e. the threshold for egregious or repeated violations is relatively low.)

Examples of incivility include, but are not limited to, use of offensive language or bullying behavior.

I have never seen any penalty called for a T6 violation (or the equivalent in past games), though it's always been in there. I would suspect that the possibility of an on-field penalty for off-field actions is enough to convince coaches to go over proper behavior standards with their teams. Also, because the first penalty is that the behavior is discussed, it's unlikely to actually escalate to an announced penalty.


That being said, I may be aware of one or more violations that never got past discussion levels (not entirely sure). The fact that the first penalty is a discussion--often with event staff--is, I think, far more effective than simply dishing out cards or penalties, for a wide variety of reasons.

And... I think we can all understand the stress behind the driver's station.